Denmark

May 17, 2017(updated on June 04, 2017)

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Denmark

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Click for a compilation of articles highlighting NGO Monitor’s contributions to the broader conversation about NGOs, funding, and accountability in Denmark. These include blogs and op-eds written by NGO Monitor and staff, as well as articles citing NGO Monitor, or otherwise relevant to our mission.

NGOs receiving Danish funding lead campaigns and political activities that are inconsistent with Danish government policies to promote peace and a two-state framework in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many Danish-funded NGOs are centrally involved in boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and lawfare campaigns.

The IHL Secretariat funds highly politicized NGOs that promote BDS campaigns and engage in legal warfare against Israeli officials and companies that do business with Israel. Some of these NGOs have ties to terror, promote blatant antisemitism, distort facts, advance a “1948 agenda,” and exploit the false “apartheid” analogy, undermining peace and contributing to radicalization.

Direct funding:

Denmark provides limited direct funding to organizations in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. The Danish Embassy in Tel Aviv’s website discloses funding for a project with Bimkom. (No other information is available.) Bimkom also receives funding from the IHL Secretariat.

Bimkom’s submissions to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits do not reflect Denmark’s support for the NGO.

The Danish Representative Office in Ramallah does not appear to directly fund NGOs.

Although the Danida funding database does not list PCHR as a recipient, PCHR includes the Royal Danish Representative Office as one of its funders in its 2015 Annual Report.

PCHR has tried to have cases brought against Israeli officials in England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, and New Zealand. The group has filed for punitive damages in the U.S. against companies doing business with Israel. In 2010, PCHR published “The Principle and Practice of Universal Jurisdiction: PCHR’s Work in the occupied Palestinian territory,” advancing allegations of Israel’s “violations of international humanitarian law,” “war crimes,” and “culture of pervasive impunity.” PCHR’s campaign has also focused on pursuing charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court, including meetings with ICC officials in Hague to “explore different avenues to bring justice to the victims of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Direct Danish funding to Palestinian and European Organizations

DanChurchAid received approximately $32 million in 2015 and $38 million in 2014.

The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR)

ICHR received $784,357 in 2016 (as of December 12, 2016) and $903,860 in 2014 from DANIDA. ICHR is a quasi-governmental Palestinian organization, which refers to explosions in Hamas military training camps and deaths in tunnels between Gaza and Egypt as human rights violations against Palestinians. Denmark committed $6 million to ICHR for 2017-2020.

DanWatch’s describes itself as an “investigative media and research center, that produces journalism in the interest of the public.” However, the organization leverages this allegedly “independent" position to politically attack Israel. As part of the BDS campaign against Israel, DanWatch has targeted Israeli and European corporations Ahava, G4S, and ISS, Israeli agricultural products, and tour operators.

While DanWatch describes itself as “a watchdog,” its own financial reports show that DanWatch practices limited financial transparency and does not release detailed information regarding its own funding sources.

DanWatch bases its research on unreliable, biased, and radical sources active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including Who Profits, ICAHD, and Al-Haq.

In 2015 (latest available), DCA’s income was DKK 650.1 million (up from DKK 564.7 million in 2014). This included DKK 215.8 million from DANIDA (DKK 224 million in 2014), and DKK 2.6 million from the Danish Ministry of Culture’s lottery grants (DKK 2.7 million in 2014)

EAPPI consistently demonizes Israel, making accusations of “apartheid,” “war crimes,” and “Bantustans.” The NGO also calls the security barrier, which has saved countless lives from suicide bombings, “evil.”

Participants often return to their home countries and promote BDS and other forms of anti-peace activities.

Signatory to the 2012 report “Trading Away Peace,” which repeats the BDS agenda and calls on EU and individual European governments to wage political warfare through various forms of economic sanctions against Israel.

As part of a “Gaza Emergency Response” campaign, DanChurchAid described the 2014 Gaza war as “the Israeli military’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’,” placing the blame for the conflict solely on Israel and ignoring the fact that the military operation was launched in response to Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

DCA funding for NGOs lacks transparency. The organization lists its Palestinian partner organizations, but does not provide funding details.

Shaun Sacks presented before the Danish parliament on its funding of highly politicized NGOs involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whose goals and methods contradict the stated objectives of the Danish government.

The report of the Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza War extensively quotes biased and unreliable political advocacy NGOs, many of which receive funding from the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, a joint funding mechanism of Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

A government donor consortium managed by Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, provides millions of dollars to Israeli and Palestinian NGOs that engage in legal and political warfare to demonize Israel.

Denmark is a major state-donor of humanitarian and development funds to NGOs engaged in intense political advocacy campaigns directed against Israel. These NGOs actively support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and employ the rhetoric of human rights, international law and apartheid to isolate Israel internationally. Such funding is inconsistent with the stated goals of Denmarks development agency and government, strengthening democracy, good governance and human rights.